The three
jewels of Buddhism in relation to Anthroposophy.
by Bruce Kirchoff
����������� When
one listens carefully to what is said by Anthroposophists, one hears three
assumptions that play themselves out in many ways. These assumptions concern
the roles of teachers, teachings, and communities in the harmonious functioning
of the group of people following the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Every
spiritual movement or religion has had to face similar challenges. We can gain
insight into how to cope with these assumptions through a study of how other
movements have dealt with them. The three jewels of Buddhism (Buddha, dharma, sangha) provide a particularly useful framework in which to explore
the roles of teachers, teachings, and communities in our spiritual striving.
����������� The first assumption that is common in Anthroposophy has two forms, an older and a newer. The older form states that that no one has attained higher knowledge following the path outlined by Steiner. My shorthand for this assumption is �There has been no attainment.� This assumption was particularly strong in the decades preceding the end of the millennium. As the millennium approached, it became increasingly difficult to maintain this assumption. It became clear that at least some people had attained something by following this path. At least some intercourse with the spiritual worlds was taking place. As this became increasingly apparent, the first form of the assumption began to wane, and a second form began to take its place. In this form, the assumption reads, �there is something to attain,� with the sub-text �we have not reached this attainment.� That is, though we begin to see signs of spiritual perception in our peers, we know that these perceptions are not the true perception of which Steiner speaks. We may have attained something, but it is not �the real thing.� This assumption assures us that we still have a long road to travel.
The second assumption is that the
teachings of Anthroposophy, as exemplified by the writings and lectures of
Rudolf Steiner, cannot be improved upon. We might say, �The teachings of
Anthroposophy are infallible.� According to this assumption, our task as
Anthroposophists is to understand and embody Steiner�s teachings. Our task is
not to contribute to them. This assumption tells us that we have nothing of
substance to contribute to these teachings, either through out own personal
experience or through out study of other spiritual movements. If we have
difficulty understanding Steiner, the fault lies with us, not with the
teachings, for his teachings are, in essence, perfect communications from the
spiritual worlds.
The third assumption is that
self-development is a matter for the individual alone. If one is to attain
�knowledge of the higher worlds,� to use Steiner�s phrase, then one must do so
on one�s own. Self-development is a matter for the individual, it is not a
community process. The community may be helpful in clarifying some concepts, in
sustaining a lending library, etc., but the role of the community is
supportive, it is not intrinsically involved in the process of
self-development. This is one of the most pervasive and least acknowledged assumptions
among Anthroposophists.
����������� We can
make the messages embodied in these assumptions more clear by looking at how
they are expressed in anthroposophical publications. Martin Barkhoff, writing
in Anthroposophy Worldwide, makes the two forms of the first assumption
beautifully clear.
As recently as November 1998 Professor Wolfgang Schad
said to me, �When you start to speak about your spiritual experiences in
anthroposophical circles, you get only two kinds of reactions. Either you are
considered to be no longer quite sound of mind or people say: �He seems to
think that he is Rudolf Steiner.��[1]
The response that the speaker is no longer of sound mind
is an expression of the first form of the assumption. Everyone knows that there
has been no attainment, so anyone claiming attainment must be slightly mad. The
second type of response, that �He seems to think that he is Rudolf Steiner�
exemplifies the second form of this assumption. The subtext of this response is
�and of course he is not Steiner. He has not attained the true spiritual sight
that Steiner speaks about.�
In the same issue, Suzanne Brodersen
speaks about the anthroposophical attitude to art, and addresses the second
common assumption: The teachings of Anthroposophy cannot be improved upon.
A matter that has always struck me is the attitude that
art done by anthroposophists is �better� that other art! This is perhaps not
intended, but somehow we must be aware of all the many others around the world
� not that we should make African or Eastern art ourselves � but we too easily
talk about art as if only �the German approach� is the right one![2]
The third assumption, that
self-development is only a matter for the individual, is so pervasive that it
is difficult to find anyone who expresses it. No one need express a �fact� that
everyone knows is true. Some of the most divisive assumptions work in this way,
as facts that everyone knows to be true. We will return to this assumption
below, in the context of Buddhism.
����������� If we
accept any of these assumptions and act on them as if they were true, our
progress toward the living knowledge of which Steiner speaks is blocked. To
understand why this is so, and to find a way out from the tyranny of these
assumptions, we will turn to Buddhism and some important things that we can
learn from Buddhist teachings.
Buddhism speaks of three jewels: the
Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. Although there are precise
definitions for these terms in the Theravada[3]
tradition, they also have relevance to Anthroposophy under slightly wider
meanings. First, we will consider the meaning of these terms in Pali, the
language of the Buddhist texts, and then turn to their application to
Anthroposophy.
�Buddha� is a name given to someone
who discovers (or rediscovers) for himself the path of liberation (of dharma) after this path has been long
forgotten by the world. [4] Siddhattha
Gotama was the most recent Buddha, but a long line of Buddhas stretches into
the past, and perhaps into the future.
The term �sangha� has two meanings in Theravada Buddhism. The first meaning
denotes the community of monks and nuns that follow the Buddha. This is the
community of followers of the Buddha who have taken monastic vows. The second
meaning links the sangha to the
attainment of a stage of higher knowledge. According to this definition, the sangha is the followers of Buddha who
have attained the first transcendent path (sotapanna,
or �entry into the stream flowing inexorably to nirvana�) [5].
Both of these definitions are more restricted than how the term has been
applied in the West. In the West, the sangha
has come to mean the whole community of followers of the Buddha, not just those
who have taken monastic vows, or those who have attained a stage of higher
knowledge.� There is a Pali term that is
much closer to this western use of sangha,
though this term (parisa) is
virtually unknown in common parlance. Because of its common usage in the West,
I will use the term sangha in a broad
sense to mean the community of followers of the Buddha.
The word �dharma� has several meanings: (1) a phenomenon in and of itself;
(2) mental quality; (3) doctrine or teaching; (4) liberation (nirvana); (5) the principles of behavior
that a person should follow to fit into the natural order of things, or the
qualities of mind that they should develop so as to realize the �quality of the
mind� in and of itself; (6) when capitalized, any doctrine that teaches such
behavior or qualities.[6]
Clearly, the term dharma is very rich
in meanings, and deserves careful study. When we speak of the Dhamma of the Buddha, we refer to both
his teachings and to the direct experience of nirvana, the quality at which his
teachings aim.
In anthroposophical terms, we can
speak of these same three qualities as the attainment (Buddha), the teachings (dharma), and the community that supports
these two (sangha). Of these three
terms, �teachings� is probably farthest from the full meaning of its Pali
equivalent (dharma). We can partially
correct this problem by expanding on the idea of teaching by considering three
other closely related Pali terms, pariyatti,
patipatti, and pativedha.
Pariyatti
refers to theoretical understanding that is obtained through reading and study.
This is the business of most anthroposophical study groups and branches. Their
aim is to build an understanding of Anthroposophy through study of Rudolf
Steiner�s books and lectures. This aspect of practice may merely lead to an
intellectual understanding of Anthroposophy, or it may be a stepping-stone to
experience. As Steiner emphasizes in Theosophy
and How to Know Higher Worlds, study
of the ideas of Spiritual Science can be the first step in higher knowledge.
. . . the exercises described here should be accompanied
by the intensive study of what researchers in spiritual science bring into the
world. Such study is part of the preparatory work in all schools of esoteric
training. . . . reading
such writings and listening to the teachings of esoteric researchers are
themselves a means of achieving knowledge for ourselves.[7]
�If our knowledge stops with intellectual understanding, we have
remained at the stage of pariyatti,
but if we have used our study to begin to traverse the path to higher
knowledge, we have begun patipatti (practice).
Patipatti is the practice of the
teachings (the dharma) that we learn
about through study. For many anthroposophists, patipatti will be a form of meditation, though artistic activity,
work in service of others, and even the experiences of everyday life can be a
form of practice if we approach them with the proper attitude.[8]
Practice, in this sense, is the vehicle that bridges the gap between
intellectual understanding (pariyatti)
and direct, first-hand realization (pativedha).[9]
Pativedha (realization) is the
highest of the three aspects of the teachings (dharma) because it is based in experience. As we approach the
threshold of the spiritual world and become aware of our non-sensory
experience, we are at the stage of pativedha.
The practice of Anthroposophy that
culminates in direct experience is supported by the community of people who
share the same path (the sangha). The
common assumption that individuals can enter the spiritual worlds alone, cannot
be supported either from a study of Buddhism, or from a study of Steiner�s
writings and lectures. Certainly, spiritual sight depends on the desire and
ability of the aspirant to purify him or herself. However, it is not true that
success depends only on the individual. The community of people who follow the
same path (the sangha) plays an
essential role in supporting this striving. In Buddhism, the fact that practice
and attainment is supported by a community is recognized by giving the sangha a place as one of the three
jewels.
To help us understand how and why a
community is necessary for attainment
of spiritual sight we can turn to the Steiner�s own biography. The community in
question can be small, but it must exist for progress to occur. We see this
fact in Steiner�s life, in his meetings with the herb dryer Felix Koguzki and
the person Steiner refers to as �another personality� to whom Felix introduced
him. Though there were undoubtedly others who helped Steiner along his path, we
know relatively little of the effect that these people had on him.[10]
Our knowledge of Felix and the �other
personality� comes from a remarkable lecture Steiner gave in Berlin, February
4, 1913.[11]
The occasion of this lecture was an assertion made by Mrs. Annie Besant, the
President of the Theosophical Society, that Steiner had received training as a
Jesuit. Steiner felt it essential to refute this assertion for several reasons.
Up through 1912 Steiner had been the General Secretary of the German Section of
the Theosophical Society, and was in some ways subordinate to Mrs. Besant. The
relationship between Steiner and the other leaders of the Theosophical Society
had been strained since 1907, when the German Section of the Society hosted the
biannual congress and introduced innovations that did not please members from other
countries.[12] The rift
grew over the next few years, with Mrs. Besant and her colleagues preparing for
the incarnation of the new �world teacher,� who would be a reincarnation of
Christ.[13]
Steiner strongly disagreed with the assertion that Christ would reincarnate,
and lectured widely on Christianity in an attempt to show the true meaning of
the incarnation. The final break with the Theosophical Society came in early
1913, when Mrs. Besant wrote an official letter intimating that Steiner was no
longer the head of the German Section.[14]
Finally, the charge that Steiner had received Jesuit training, and even that he
had been ordained as a priest, had been published in several Jesuit books and
magazines for some years. Although he had attempted to set the record straight,
the false rumors persisted. Now that they were being promulgated by Mrs.
Besant, Steiner felt that he must speak openly about the course of his life.
His lecture of February 4 gives us one of the few glimpses of his personal life
and relationships in the years before he assumed the leadership of the German
Section of the Theosophical Society (1902). In this context, Steiner speaks of
two people who served the important function of providing a community in which
he could develop his spiritual sight.
�. . . Felix was the
herald, as it were, of another personality, who served as a means to stimulate
in the soul of the boy [Rudolf Steiner] - who indeed already lived in the
spiritual worlds - the regular, systematic qualities one has to have in order
to gain knowledge in the spiritual worlds. . . . he used the works of Fichte,
connecting them with certain studies that gave rise to things in which it is
really possible to find the seeds of his occult science. . . As a starting-point, he often used a book that had
frequently been suppressed in Austria owing to its anticlerical tendency, a
book that could stimulate one to follow special spiritual paths and steps.[15]�
The importance of this
small community cannot be overemphasized. In addition to specific training,
Felix and the �other personality� provided a sense of companionship, and
confirmed the spiritual sight that Steiner had possessed all of his life.
Without this training and confirmation it is doubtful that Steiner would have
developed his spiritual sight to the degree that he did. Steiner's own words
clearly imply this. He speaks of gaining�
"the regular, systematic qualities one has to have in order to gain
knowledge in the spiritual worlds."
It is important to note
that the community to which the young Rudolf Steiner was introduced included
more than just Felix and the "other personality." The lessons Steiner
received were delivered via the works of Fichte, and "a book that had
frequently been suppressed in Austria owing to its anticlerical tendency." An occult study of Fichte
strengthened Steiner�s connection to European intellectual life. This
intellectual milieu provided a community that was extremely important in
shaping Steiner�s approach to the spirit.[16]
In addition to deepening of
his spiritual sight, it is likely that the training offered by this "other
personality� served to introduce Steiner to his higher ego. In the same
lecture, Steiner says of the paths and steps that he was led to follow �These
particular streams that pass through the occult world, which can be recognized
only if one bears in mind a double stream moving forward and backward, appeared
in a living way before the boy�s soul.[17]�
To understand what he means by this sentence, we need to turn to another of his
writings. In the final chapter of How to
Know Higher Worlds, Steiner makes it clear that the stream from the future
bears the Greater Guardian of the Threshold, an aspect of our higher ego.[18]
By combining these two sources we can see that Steiner is telling us, without
explicitly saying so, that his meeting with the "other personality"
was an initiation experience for him. He met his higher self through this
experience. This meeting is a deeply personal and significant experience. It is
important to realize that Steiner did not come to it alone. He had support form
a community, all-be-it a small one, in the form of Felix, the "other
personality," Fichte, and the "anticlerical book." It is easy
for us to neglect this community and discount its effect on Steiner, but these
influences were essential. Without them, the Rudolf Steiner we know would not
have existed. Without Felix, Steiner�s initiation into the higher worlds would
have come in a quite different way, with who knows what results.
We are all dependent on these
types of communities. We undertake self-development as members of a community,
or we do not undertake it at all. The fact that the sangha is one of the three jewels of Buddhism helps us recognize
the important role that the community plays in our spiritual development.
Without a sangha, there can be no spiritual
attainment, but it is also true that without attainment, the sangha has no reason to exist. The three
jewels are intimately linked. If the Buddha had never lived, or had never
attained liberation, there would be no reason for a community to form around
him. This community initially consisted of the five monks with whom he
practiced austerities. These monks, and others who joined them, accepted his
teachings and became the vehicle for their promulgation in the world. As the
first Buddhist sangha, they heard and
recorded his sermons, and advanced their own development in the process. These
sermons are now preserved as part of the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism. Not
only did the sangha provide a vehicle
for the liberation of its members, but it also was the vehicle for the
publication and dissemination of the texts. Without the sangha there would be no Buddhist teachings today. This is true
both with respect to recording the teachings, and with respect to their
genesis.
During the Buddha�s life,
the existence of the sangha was an
important cause of the Buddha sermons. If there had been no one to receive
them, it is highly unlikely that he would have spoken as he did. If no one ever
stopped to listen, his sermons would soon have ended. After his death, the sangha was the vehicle for the
continuation of his teachings. His work had to be carried by others, or it
would have died with him. The sangha
is thus necessary for both the origin and the continuation of the teachings.
The relationship between
the attainment (Buddha) and the teachings (dharma)
is also intimate. The Buddha�s teachings spring from his attainment. He himself
makes this clear in his first sermon.
"And, monks, as long as this knowledge & vision of mine -- with its three rounds & twelve permutations concerning these four noble truths as they actually are present -- was not pure, I did not claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening . . . But as soon as this knowledge & vision of mine -- with its three rounds & twelve permutations concerning these four noble truths as they actually are present -- was truly pure, then I did claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening. . . Knowledge & vision arose in me: 'Unprovoked is my release.[19]�
����������� Without attainment, there would be no teachings, but the
relationship between attainment and the teachings goes deeper than this. Once
the teachings have been given, they must be kept alive. Teachings that exist
only as texts that are never read, or that are read but not understood, are not
true teachings. To be living, the teachings must be understood. This requires
some degree of attainment. In Buddhism, this relationship is demonstrated from
the very beginning. When the Buddha finished his first sermon, the monk
Konda��a attained the first stage of awakening, and thus gave birth to the ariya sangha (noble sangha).[20]
His attainment shows that the teachings are living realities.
����������� After the Buddha�s death, attainment continues to play a
role in Buddhist teachings. Without the level of understanding that comes from
direct experience, the Buddha�s sermons would soon pass into obscurity. They
would be texts that had no meaning. No one would be affected by them. To be
affected by them means to have understood them (pariyatti). To have understood them, means to have worked with them
(patipatti). To have worked with them
leads to direct experience (pativedha).
If it does not, the teachings are dead. One could even say that are no longer
true. It is not that the words on the page have become lies. It is that what is
written no longer has any connection with experience. To return the teachings
to a state where they can be understood requires some level of attainment. This
attainment need not be at the same level that produced the teachings. We do not
all have to become Buddhas. However, it must be of the same nature as the
original attainment. Subsequent attainment must be implicitly the same as the
attainment that produced the teachings. We might say that it is qualitatively
the same, but quantitatively different.
����������� If the teachings fail, if they begin to die, then the
community (sangha) must fail too, and
with it the attainment that should follow from the teachings. A living
community has living teachings at its center. These teachings are still
attached to the master who produced them, but have also been enlarged and made
relevant to current conditions. If the teachings do not have this character,
the community forms around a center that is irrelevant to its members. Attempts
to follow the teachings then lead to frustration, and most likely to
self-flagellation, for the purity of the teachings will seldom be questioned.
Failure to attain the promised insights will be blamed on the individual, whose
ability or dedication to the cause will come into question. The community that
should provide support for its members will now turn on itself, and begin the
slow process of disintegration.
����������� When this happens, when the community fails, there is no
longer any support for attainment. It would be as if, following the Buddha�s
sermon, Konda��a had
gotten up, yawned and said �How boring! I think I will go bathe.� If the
teachings are not seen as relevant, there can be no community, no group of
people who support each other in their striving and attainment. Without the
community, attainment fails. Without attainment, the teachings are not
understood and cannot be kept alive. Without living teachings, the community
fails. Instead of a positive, mutually reinforcing set of interactions, a
vicious circle ensues. The jewels of Buddhism must shine together, or none can
shine at all.
����������� The
relationships between the three jewels can be summarized in a diagram (Figure
1). This relationship is intimate and profound. Each jewel is dependent on the
others in order to function properly.
����������� Let us now return to the three assumption found among
anthroposophists and investigate their relationship to the three jewels. The
assumption that there has been no attainment is a failure of the Buddha. The
assumption that the teachings cannot be improved upon is a failure of the dharma. Finally, the assumption that the
anthroposophical community has no significant role in the attainment of
spiritual sight is a failure of the sangha.
When one of these jewels fails, they all fail. Where does this leave us, and
how do we get out?
����������� In one of his final lectures before passing, Schmidt-Brabant
summarized the situation in many groups following Steiner�s teachings today.[21]
At the end of August [1923], shortly before the Christmas Conference, Rudolf Steiner spoke of �walls of occult imprisonment.� The symptoms described can be recognized today when an individual or a group can no longer act in the world freely. When all endeavors are thrown back; when we seem to be stuck. Then there are the walls between each other � when we see people doing marvelous work but they cannot come together. We have the experience of sitting in a group � all the right things are said, but at the end nothing happens. We go our own way feeling frustrated, as if something comes between people to hinder.[22]
To find a way out of this prison
we can turn again to Buddhism, though this time to Tibetan Buddhism. The
American Buddhist nun Pema Ch`dron speaks of three
qualities which we already possess, and which we can ripen and mature. These
are the qualities of precision, gentleness, and letting go. The cultivation of
these qualities can help us restore the jewels, and find a way out of the
occult prison.
When the Buddha taught, he
didn�t say that we were bad people or that there was some sin that we had
committed � original or otherwise � that made us more ignorant than clear, more
harsh than gentle, more closed than open. He taught that there is a kind of
innocent misunderstanding that we all share, something that can be turned
around, corrected, and seen through, as if we were in a dark room and someone
showed us where the light switch was. It isn�t a sin that we are in the dark
room. It�s just an innocent situation, but how fortunate that someone shows us
where the light switch is. It brightens up our life considerably. We can start
to read books, to see one another�s faces, to discover the colors of the walls,
to enjoy the little animals that creep in and out of the room.
In the same way, if we see
our so-called limitations with clarity, precision, gentleness, good
heartedness, and kindness and, having seen them fully, then let go, open
further, we begin to find that our world is more vast and more refreshing and
fascinating than we had realized before. In other words, the key to feeling
more whole and less shut off and shut down is to be able to see clearly who we
are and what we�re doing.[23]
How do we apply these
qualities?
Precision always involves
a clear recognition of what is seen. When we become aware of an assumption,
precision allows us to see not only the assumption, but also the fact that we hold it. When we become aware of the
assumption that there has been no attainment, and are precise about this
awareness, we realize �Ah! I think that
there has been no attainment.� This recognition that �I think� the assumption allows us to take a
step away from the it, and to begin to see that the assumption is not something
that must be true. The assumption is
merely something that �I think.� The possibility that we are wrong now opens
up. As this happens, we may find ourselves shifting from the older form of this
assumption (there has been no attainment) to the newer (there is something to
attain that we have not attained). Being precise allows us to question even
this. We begin to wonder about the thought that there is something to attain, something
that eludes us. In becoming curios about this thought, we are already applying
the second quality: gentleness.
The innocent mistake that
keeps us caught in our own particular style of ignorance, unkindness, and
shut-downness is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is, with
gentleness. Instead, there is a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should
try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things,
and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, than
we would be happy. That is the innocent, na�ve misunderstanding that we all
share, which keeps us unhappy.[24]
Through gentleness, we
learn to question our assumptions without being harsh with ourselves. It is
very easy to turn our precision on ourselves and feel that we are defective
because we have assumptions. Gentleness toward ourselves prevents this. It
allows us to open up, to step away from our assumptions into a world whose
boundaries have not been explored. As we gently explore the assumption that
there is something to attain, we begin to open to the possibility that we do
not have to work at attainment, that we do not have to improve ourselves, that
we are perfect just as we are. This realization can free us to work
productively on ourselves. Instead of trying to attain something that we know
(i.e., assume) will take many lifetimes, we can work knowing that what we are
doing at this moment is already perfect. When we accept this, we begin to open
ourselves to the stream of time that flows to us from the future. This stream
carries our higher self to us. This self has already attained all that we
desire now. From our perspective, this attainment exists in the future, but
from the perspective of that future, we are the goal of its striving. Our
higher self flows toward us. If we assume that it cannot reach us, that there
can be no true attainment for us in the present, then we interfere with its
approach. But if we accept that we are already perfect, then the future comes
to meet us, and we are perfect. We
create the conditions under which the future can come to us. From the
perspective of the reverse stream of time, the future has already happened. We
only have to realize that this is so to make it real in our lives.
Through precision and
gentleness, we learn to let go of our assumptions. Letting go is the third
quality that we can ripen, but it is not something we do actively. Letting go
is something that happens when we apply precision, with gentleness. We do not have
to �let go,� it is not an activity that we can control or manipulate. It is
more like grace. It depends on our receptivity, but it comes on its own, in its
own time. Letting go allows us to open wider, to take in more of life, to
accept pleasure and pain with the same welcoming spirit. To say yes, to
whatever life bring us.
We can apply these same
qualities to the second assumption found among anthroposophists: the teachings
of Anthroposophy cannot be improved upon. First, there is precision; there is
the recognition that something is wrong. We notice, with Suzanne Brodersen,
that anthroposophists think that their path is better than everyone else�s.
Because we are being precise, we notice what this recognition does to us. It
causes us to feel inwardly tense, to be critical of anthroposophists as well as
of other spiritual streams, and to pull slightly away from all of them. We
become more isolated and critical. Then, because we have chosen to be gentle
with ourselves, we ask with great gentleness �What is that about? What is it
about that we feel critical and isolated? Where does this come from?� We start
to develop a great curiosity about ourselves. Our gentleness towards ourselves
transforms our thoughts and feelings into amazing jewels that we marvel over,
and wonder about. �Where do they come from? Isn�t that one interesting?! What
fascinating things lurk inside of me.� We do not need to answer these
questions. If we merely� hold them with
gentleness, we find that we begin to let go of the assumption we previously
carried. The assumptions begin to dissolve on their own. We do not need to work
at this. It just happens as a result of our gentleness. Now, because we have
fewer assumptions, we become genuinely curious about what others think. We
might ask Suzanne Brodersen why she thinks as she does. We might ask her why
she thinks that anthroposophists should not �make African or Eastern art
ourselves.� We might begin to find links between Anthroposophy and
non-anthroposophical art. We might write an article on these links. In short,
we begin to say �and� instead of �but� when confronted with teachings that are
not presently in the anthroposophical canon. We begin to enlarge the canon, to
contribute to and improve the teachings, to make them relevant to the world
situation today. The thought that Anthroposophy has any fixed teachings is now
far behind us, for we are creating those teachings as we learn. The teachings
have come to life for us.
The final assumption, that
self-development is a matter only for the individual, can be dealt with in a
similar manner. Precision allows us to see that this assumption is not a fact,
it is merely something that �I think.�
With gentleness, we begin to ask ourselves �Why do I think this? Why do I think
that self-development is a matter for the individual? What experiences have
contributed to this idea? How do I feel about my achievements and myself when I
think this? Isn�t it interesting that I have these feelings around this issue?!
Why do I feel that?� Through this process, through gentleness with ourselves,
we let go of the assumption. We begin to see that many people have helped us in
our development, and that we have helped many others. We begin to see the
community that already exists among anthroposophists. The community that is so
important to our development, and which so many people seek today. We realize
that it has only been our assumptions and our harshness with ourselves that
have kept us from participating fully in this community as a student, and as a
teacher.
When we let go of our
assumptions about attainment, the teachings, and the role of the community, we
free ourselves from the dysfunction that occurs when the three jewels are
misunderstood. The three jewels of Buddhism, and of Anthroposophy, are then
able to function in harmony. The whole that becomes visible has always been
present. Its radiance has just been temporarily obscured by our assumptions.
Once we are free of these, the jewels are able to shine again. The qualities of
precision, gentleness, and letting go, enable us to embody that spiritual power
of love that Manfred Schmidt-Brabant speaks of at the end of his final lecture.
Then we manage to break
through the walls of occult imprisonment with the only thing that can break
through, the power of love in a spiritual way.[25]
This spiritual power of
love is not something abstract. It is a real force in our lives. We only have
to allow it to manifest itself. Recognizing the three jewels of Anthroposophy
can help in this process.
References
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Barkhoff, M.
2000.Exchanging spiritual experiences. Anthroposophy Worldwide No.10, December
2000. p. 2
Brodersen, S. 2000. Our activities
are not �better� than theirs. Anthroposophy Worldwide No.10, December 2000. p.
2
Bullitt, J. 2001. What is Theravada
Buddhism? http://www.accesstoinsight.org/theravada.html
Ch`dron, P. 1991. The wisdom
of no escape. Shambhala, Boston.
Franklin, N. V. P. 1989. Prolegomena to the study
of Rudolf Steiner�s Christian teaching with respect to the Masonic tradition.
Dissertation, University College, Cardiff, Wales.
Marcum, U. B. 1989. Rudolf Steiner: An
intellectual Biography. University of California, Riverside. [Available from
UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, MI, USA (order no. 8915938)]
Samyutta Nikaya LVI.11
Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta [Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion]
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn56-011.html (Translated by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu).
Schmidt-Brabant, M. 2000.
Collaborating to meet the destiny of our time as pupils of the spirit �
Michael�s signature in the present. Journal of the Anthroposophical Society for
cultural, social and economic research in Australia. December 2000. pp. 3-4[26]
Shepherd, A. P. 1983. Scientist of the invisible.
Inner Traditions International. New York, NY.
Steiner, R. 1909/1994. How to know
higher worlds. Anthroposophic Press. Hudson, NY. (Translated by Christopher Bamford)
Steiner, R. 1913/1985. Self Education:
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(Translated by A. Wulsin)
Steiner, R. 1925/2000 Autobiography.
Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY.